


Stagelights

by siderealOtaku



Category: Kill la Kill
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Everyone is a team, Feelings, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Healing and Recovery, Idol Singer AU, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Canon, So they work through it by rocking out, The cast has a lot to work through
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-21
Updated: 2015-04-21
Packaged: 2018-03-25 01:33:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3791653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siderealOtaku/pseuds/siderealOtaku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After everything they'd been through, they couldn't be anything but a team. But with no more wars to fight or enemies to destroy, they were at a loss for what to do. When Nonon and Mako decide to rope the others into forming an idol group, they learn that shared trauma and saving the world gives them a lot to sing about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stagelights

**Author's Note:**

> I was given the prompt "Idol AU," which by all rights should have been a fluffy piece of nonsense...and turned into this mess of feelings instead. My apologies.

Satsuki shows up an hour before the concert covered in thread and blood, a Tailor's Dagger in her still-clenched fist. 

Ryuko is at the table, reluctantly allowing her hair to be teased and tugged by an over-enthusiastic Mako. She looks up at her sister. She asks the needed questions without speaking. 

"She was a model," her sister says. "She thought I was trying to rob her of her livelihood." 

Ryuko doesn't want to ask about the blood. 

"Mine. One of the coats bit me. Not hers." A pause. "The Conglomerate has a model now. What need do I have for a model?" 

Before someone (Mako) can (attempt to) provide an answer, Nonon enters still-bathrobed, ushers Satsuki off for a bath and dress. Nobody but Ryuko sees how Satsuki's shoulders relax infinitesimally under Nonon's touch. 

They're in Paris, somewhere in the theater district. None of them like it. It all makes them think of hordes in pink, of the horror of mon-mignon-pret-a-porter. And of "her". The concert starts in half an hour. They're opening, as they always do, with their headliner. The media calls it 'an artsy paean to the difficulty of growing up'. Critics think lines like 'time to take off your sailor uniform' are meant in a metaphorical senes. Still, they're an international hit, even if nobody quite understands what their songs are about. 

_La vie est drole._

They'd tried to live separate lives, really they had. Ryuko and Mako finished high school with averages on the low end of decent (and far too many panicked night-before-the-exam phone calls to Mikisugi). Ira learned how to strike a hammer against burning-hot metal and not to see a faceless clothing-monster melting and twisting with each strike. Satsuki learned that without an army of Life Fiber clones, paperwork became a truly monumental, energy-draining task. She considered hiring Houka to simply wipe the Conglomerate's data banks (she didn't). 

Uzu practiced. Shiro sewed. Soroi brewed pot after pot of tea. 

They saw each other, certainly, every so often, in cafes and movie theaters and boardrooms (but never, never in clothing stores). Satsuki traveled - her mother's reach had been wide, and so must hers be if she wishes to eradicate every last trace of REVOCs or fibers.

They sent messages (a few) and phone calls (even fewer). They scoured newspapers for any trace of each other, Satsuki especially. When Omiko was selected for the Olympic tennis team, when Fukuroda beat the American boxing champion in the last few seconds of the match, Satsuki tried to tell herself that her reign of tyranny did some good for some of them, at least. 

They cannot live normal lives, not with what they have suffered through. Uniforms suffocate them. Rainbows frighten them. 

Then the audition comes, and they seize upon the opportunity to drift back together. 

Mako isn't sure why she signs up for the talent search audition. Perhaps it is because she, the unshakable Mankanshoku, is bored. Her test scores hadn't been college-worthy (Satsuki's curriculum had been strict and correct, but some minds were not meant for classroom learning) and she was working as an assistant at her father's back-alley clinic. She goes to the audition because it will be something new. 

They praise her voice and her energy and tell her that she's not quite what they're looking for in a solo act, but would she consider an impromptu group audition with another contestant? 

She shrugs sure, why not and suddenly Nonon is there, miniscule yet somehow larger than life, imperiously informing the judges that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is a perfectly acceptable piece to set her dance audition to. They look at each other, two young women who were never quite friends, and at the panel of grey-haired men who know nothing about Life Fibers or Naturals Elections and they sing an impromptu love song about the girl who just won't notice them and they're hired. 

"Do you have friends?" their new agent asks. Two is good, but more is better. 

"We do," they say with matching smirks. 

Nonon gets Satsuki and Mako gets Ryuko and they both insist they have important things to do, but neither could ever resist their best friend's puppy-dog eyes and soon they're sitting in Satsuki's opulent living room and, to the surprise of everyone present except Nonon, they _rock_. They have a lot to talk about, a lot to sing about, and they find that fighting and dancing aren't too far removed from one another after all. Shared trauma becomes shared music and by the end of the day, Japan's newest idol sensation is born. 

(They don't have to argue about a name, as so many groups do. Their name is one word, blazing red above the stage, in capital English letters: SENKETSU.) 

(Shiro sews their first costumes without even being asked or commissioned - navy and red with yellow lapels that look like eyes. That night, Ryuko crawls into Mako's futon and finally lets herself cry.) 

They don't start small. Satsuki Kiryuin and Nonon Jakuzure aren't exactly small names, after all. They're playing concert halls and sold-out stadiums and within a year they've booked their first international tour and, if Rei Hououmaru (their manager) happened to book them near a few hotspots of suspected Life Fiber presence, well, she feigns surprise and claims she didn't even realize it. 

(A package arrives the day before they leave: a Tailor's Dagger for each of them, the name on the return address Aikuro Mikisugi. Nobody's quite sure which of them contacted him and asked him to send them. Perhaps none of them at all. Perhaps they didn't have to.) 

The others come to their shows, of course. Shiro in the front row, critically eying every seam and ruffle of their newest outfit. Ira lustily bellowing the chorus to 'Bloodstained Dress' or 'Song for a Sibling'. Uzu claps the loudest, except when Fukuroda is in the audience. Then, it's a competition. 

It's not long before they've gone from viewers to helpers - before they start to become a team again. The crowds get bigger and bigger, and Uzu's voice and Ira's commanding presence make them the perfect bouncers. Their agent drops a snide comment that their special effects are looking 'dated'. Several sleepless nights later, Houka has made him eat his words.

It's not just the students. They start eating meals together before each show, citing nerves and stress, hiding their desire for simple companionship. They try a few catering companies, but nobody can keep up with Elite Four appetites. After the third chef quits in a rage, Mako (as it usually is) is finally the one to voice what they were all thinking - what they really wanted all along were some of Sukuyo Mankanshoku's croquettes. 

Sukuyo as their caterer naturally leads to Barazo as their medic (not that idols who were warriors before they were allowed to be girls take many wounds dancing). Mataro's first souvenir stand is a rickety folding table plunked down in the middle of the lobby, selling half-melted popsicles and pictures he took of the girls (except Satsuki) in their pajamas. He's made close to a thousand dollars by the time Ryuko and Nonon drag him backstage by the ears. (As frightening as they both are, it's Mako's tongue-lashing and Satsuki's icy glare that set him cowering). He promises that he'll never do it again. He drags his folding table to the next concert, fully prepared to break his promise - only to find a neat little booth fully stocked with goods bearing the Kiryuin Congolmerate logo. 

(After the show, Ryuko manages to stammer out a thank you for everything Satsuki has done for her family. She's never seen the Mankanshokus so happy. Her sister gives a heart-achingly beautiful smile and reminds her little sister that any family of Ryuko's is family of hers). 

It takes the Nudists the longest to join their ragged group, but they eventually show up, too. Mikisugi was less than skilled as a teacher, but shows a surprising affinity for procuring light bulbs in a seemingly endless stream of colors. (Nobody dares ask where he gets them). With ever-larger crowds, Uzu and Ira are more than grateful for the help Tsumugu's surly countenance and gruff voice provides. 

The tickets and the CDs and the merchandise keep selling, and gradually, four girls used to service and sacrifice learn how to accept adoration. They discover that learning how to be liked - how to be loved - is more difficult than mastering the trickiest of attacks. 

It's harder for some than others. 

Ira brings massive bouquets backstage after each show, even after he's graduated from viewer to bouncer. Not just for Mako, as one might expect, but for Ryuko as well. She's confused and more than a little put off by the gesture. She tries to throw the first few away, but the next morning they've somehow been spirited out of her dumpster and are perched on her bedside table in a water-filled vase - product of that strange stealthy, cheery magic that Mako and Sukuyo alone seem to possess. 

She graduates from throwing them away to leaving them where they are to actually going out and looking for vases and bowls for them. She never thanks either the flower-bringer or the vase-purchaser flower-waterer, but they smile at her regardless, smiles that promise forgiveness and acceptance and things she's too scared to dare allow herself to even think about. 

It's somewhere between seven and eight months since he started bringing them that she manages to look him in the eye (it's one of his short days, he barely clears seven feet) and reach out a quivering crimson-gloved hand and take the bouquet and say "Thank you, Gamago....Ira. Thank you, Mako." Their smiles are a healing balm and she feels something - real honest thread, not Life Fibers - begin stitching up inside her. 

She doesn't make the offer verbally, but they hear it nonetheless. She's just finished the tea and stilted yet affectionate sisterly conversation with which she traditionally ends her day when two knocks shake her door so thoroughly it nearly shatters off its hinges. 

"I..." she says. She can't finish the sentence. She's never been good with words. 

Mako hugs her, tight around the waist, as she has so many times, but replete with the promise of something new. Ira tilts up her chin. 

"Matoi-sama, do you..." 

Saying yes takes more courage than ripping Junketsu from her body, than following Ragyo into space, than calling Satsuki sister for the first time. 

She is brave. 

She says it. 

Her first kiss is with Mako. Her second is with Ira. One is gentle; one is forceful; both are beautiful and taste of life and fire and energy and hope. She gives them both a gentle smile. The two who love her notice that in this moment, her resemblance to Satsuki is striking. 

She wakes the next morning with Mako's arms locked around her waist and Ira's furnace-like heat pressed against her back. It takes nearly ten minutes of wriggling to disentangle herself from Mako's grip without waking either of her new lovers. 

Satsuki is awake (as usual) in the kitchen drinking tea (as usual). "Sister?" Ryuko asks shyly. Satsuki's eyes flash and turn to her, her protective instincts awoken. "Is something wrong?" 

"I think I'm..."

She can't say it yet. 

Satsuki understands. 

There's no 'It's okay'. 'Don't be afraid'. She knows that will have no effect here. She has been a sister for just a few years, but she has applied herself to it with the same determination and dedication as to any task. 

Instead she says, "You're not the only one." 

"I'm not? Who-"

"Shiro," This smirk is foreign on her face, lighthearted, secretive, full of that whispered communication that only exists between the closest of sisters. "And _Houka_ " 

"Houka? Houka!" Ryuko doesn't notice that she's sitting practically in her sister's lap, that they're giggling like the pair of teenagers they were never allowed to be as Satsuki shares how she had gone to check on Shiro after yet another all-nighter designing their latest colorful dresses to find him blissfully snogging Houka on top of a pile of bright red fabric. 

"It's very brave of you, little sister," Satsuki tells Ryuko gravely once the gossiping has finished. "I...wish I had such courage." 

Ryuko thinks of the longing glances that Nonon sends her sister, of the lyrics to the ballad the pink-haired musician had penned, "Steel Sandcastles," and hopes that someday Satsuki will find that courage in herself. 

"Ryuko-chan, Ryuko-chan!" Ryuko wakes from her reminiscence to Mako waving her arms at light speed in her face. "Ryuko-chan, were you thinking about the concert? It's going to awesome and Ira-chan said he'll take us for a special dinner tonight! Did you know they eat snails in France?" Her fingers curl in front of her face, forming snail-like antennae. Ryuko marvels that there was ever a time when she couldn't interpret Mako's gestures. 

She doesn't tell Mako that she'd been lost in reverie, that she'd been thinking about how they came to this time and place, a team once again, rebuilt and reforged with new strength and new companionship. Instead, she allows the bright coil of happiness to grow and unfurl within her chest and grants Mako a blinding smile. That smile comes easier to her, these days. 

In the other room, she hears Nonon's giggle and Satsuki's lower-pitched chuckle, and wonders if maybe tonight her sister will take the step she needs. Ryuko has hope that she will. 

"Ryuko-chan, should we get them? It's nearly time to start," 

Ryuko snags Mako's red-and-navy collar and drags her across the table for a kiss. "We can afford to give them five more minutes." 

Ira comes in then, and sweeps his beloveds into his massive arms (he's twelve feet today, and barely fits into the room,) and five minutes stretches into ten, and the girls are nearly late and Ryuko is pretty sure that Satsuki and Nonon are wearing each other's stockings. 

Then the lights come up and the crowd cheers and they sweep into the opening notes of 'Bloodstained Dress' and the crowd is singing along, Uzu loudest of all, and Shiro is clapping from his spot on Houka's lap and Omiko and Fukuroda are arm-wrestling for the aisle seat and Mataro is hawking popcorn and Ira is looking up at them with unhidden love in his eyes....

...and SENKETSU'S concert has begun.


End file.
